


Stay

by Kitsilver



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, Ellie chooses family over revenge, F/F, Family, Fix It Fic, Hurt/Comfort, alternative ending, brief descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24887134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitsilver/pseuds/Kitsilver
Summary: Ellie can’t sleep, can’t eat. She gets nightmares and panic attacks. Life is good for the most part, but part of her is so broken and messed up. Tommy was offering her a chance to finally close that part of her life.But what if she had to choose between revenge and her life with Dina and JJ? She was so torn. But in the end, she chooses her family over her revenge. She chooses Dina, and Dina chooses her.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 375





	Stay

She slipped the gun into her backpack, the smooth metal cool on her skin. Several rounds of bullets. Her knife. Matches. Supplies. She packed with half a mind; it didn’t take much to know what she needed. 

If only she wasn’t so cold.

She’d shrugged into Joel’s jacket, telling herself it was for the warmth and waterproof nature of it. But honestly, she’d always found it comforting. The worn leather felt lived in and sturdy, like it would last forever. It reminded her of Joel.

It wasn’t doing much to warm her up now though.

Why did she feel so hollow?

Ellie closed her eyes, took a deep breath and counted to three.

This was her only choice, right?

Tommy was giving her a chance to take out Abby. To finally make her pay for everything. Anger flashed hot and sudden in Ellie’s chest. Her fists clenched as she thought of that night in the theater, with Dina bloody and passed out on the floor. Jesse’s head splattered by a bullet. Tommy looking dead on the floor.

But she’d let them go.

Why the fuck would she do that, again?

She’d let Dina live, when Ellie hadn’t shown that mercy to any of her friends.

Why couldn’t she just let it go?

_The image of Joel’s broken and bleeding body on the floor, his face smashed and unrecognizable. Her anguished cries as she pleaded for Abby to stop._

The memory tore her through like a bullet and she hunched forward, arms wrapped around herself and eyes clenched shut, as she fought off the memory. It was still so fucking clear, every detail.

That was why she had to go.

Her resolve hardened, her breathing slowed. She opened her eyes again, looking out into the dark.

She didn’t have a choice.

If she wanted any peace. If she wanted this to just end. She had to go.

But from behind her, soft footfalls that she wouldn’t mistake for anyone else.

Dina.

Her heart clenched again, and Ellie didn’t know if it was pain or something else. But it pushed out that cold, hollow feeling in her chest. Despite everything, Ellie smiled, but only for a moment.

Dina wasn’t gonna like what she had resolved to do.

“Hey,” Dina called.

Ellie took her time getting to her feet and turning around. Dina was there, hair mussed from sleep and falling around her face. She looked hesitant, and sort of sad, like she didn’t know what to say. It was a look that she rarely saw on Dina’s face.

“Hey,” Ellie said. There was something closing around her throat making it harder to speak. 

Dina bit her lip and looked away, then seized on the one topic that was always safe. “Man, it’s been a while since he slept this long, huh?” There was a little smile on her face when she walked toward Ellie, but her eyes were worried. She stepped further into the light, and Ellie could clearly see the scar from that arrow, a jagged line from the front of her shoulder into her chest. Ellie could trace from memory its twin on Dina’s back, the entry wound to match the exit wound in front. She could still remember breaking the arrow in half and pulling it out, with Dina unconscious and bleeding in her arms.

“He had a day,” Ellie said.

Dina’s eyes didn’t leave hers. “Yea.” She stared at her for a beat longer than normal, then shook her head. “He’s fine.”

 _We’re fine,_ Ellie could almost hear her say.

“Come back to bed,” Dina said. “We’ll talk about it in the morning, ok?” She turned to go back to the stairs, but Ellie couldn’t just let her go.

“I have to finish it,” she said.

Dina’s shoulders dropped. Ellie couldn’t see her face, but she knew her well enough to know when she was upset. Had drawn her face in her notebook enough times to know what that looked like.

But Ellie had to make her understand.

Dina took a deep breath, as if girding herself for a fight, then she turned around. “You don’t owe Tommy anything,” she said, hands on her hips, tone defiant.

“This isn’t about Tommy,” Ellie said. “Not all of it. This is about _me._ ”

“Oh, you need this?” Dina said, stepping closer. “You really want this?”

“Dina…” Ellie closed her eyes, trying to find the right words. It just hurt so much this thing she carried inside. She’d thought she had buried it after they got back to Jackson, after JJ was born. There were so many happy days. But there were still nights when she couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. When the nightmares would wake her, gasping, and she’d have to leave their room to not wake the baby. The panic attacks like what she had in the barn, they didn’t happen often, but they scared the shit out of her because she didn’t know when they’d be coming.

She’d been holding JJ that time.

What if something happened to him, what if she dropped him?

What if she was so broken that she hurt him?

“I’m not like you, Dina.” 

Dina looked like she could not believe what Ellie was saying. Her eyes narrowed, she shook her head. “What? You think this is _easy_?” Her voice rose, incredulous. “For you, and for him --” her voice changed then, that soft inflection whenever she talked about JJ, “--I deal with it.”

Ellie squirmed as Dina walked closer, trying not say the first things that came to mind.

Maybe you shouldn’t have to deal with it. 

Maybe you deserve better than me.

Maybe… it’s better for me not to be here…like this.

But Ellie had been working on saying what she really felt. She wanted Dina to understand. This wasn’t about her. Or JJ.

She met Dina’s gaze. “I love you –” she started to say.

But Dina wasn’t having it. “So, prove it,” she said, her gaze unyielding. But her voice was soft when she said, “Stay.”

It was a whisper, a plea. And it broke Ellie’s heart because how could she not stay. She shook her head, torn between the nightmare and the promise of it ending, and the look on Dina’s face.

_Stay._

Dina wanted her to stay.

She still wanted her like this. Her hands started to tremble, as memories threatened to overtake her again. Memories of blood, sometimes her own, but usually someone else’s, staining her hands.

She couldn’t stay. Not like this.

“I can’t,” said, shoving her hand in her pocket and reaching with the other hand for her backpack.

“Hey, stop.” Dina reached for her, closing the distance in a few steps and taking Ellie’s face in her hands. She looked like she was fighting for words. Her brave, beautiful, smartass Dina who always had something to say, searching for words.

“Please,” she said. She held Ellie close, eyes searching hers, holding her as if she never wanted to let her go. She took a deep breath, the kind you take when you’re trying not to cry. “We’re a family.” She shook her head, but tears slipped out anyway. “She can’t be more important than that.”

Ellie shook her head, that lump in her throat choking her, and leaned forward to rest her head on Dina’s. Her hands closed over Dina’s wrists, not pulling away, just anchoring herself. “Of course, she’s not,” Ellie said fiercely. “No one is more important than you and JJ.”

“Then why can’t you stay?” Dina pulled back to stare at her, but didn’t let go of her face. In her eyes, Ellie saw the determination and rock-hard stubbornness that she loved. It was also a pain in her ass. But her heart lifted, just a bit, at the sight.

Ellie took a deep breath, looking down and trying to gather her thoughts. Dina caressed her cheek gently, waiting.

“Because I’m broken, Dina,” Ellie said at last. “There’s something in me I don’t know how to fix. I have to believe that killing Abby will fix it because…” she shook her head. “I can’t go through life like this.” She bit her lip, worrying. “It wouldn’t be right to you and JJ.”

Dina shook her head, tears still in her eyes, but there was something like hope there too. “You are such a dumbass.” She pulled Ellie’s face even closer to hers, said each word slowly and clearly as if she wanted to etch each word onto Ellie’s soul. Whatever was left of it. “Don’t you worry about me and JJ,” she said. “We’re going to be fine. We want _you_.” She took a breath, then said, “ _I_ want you. As the dumbass that you are.”

Ellie didn’t know if it was a sob or a laugh that choked its way out of her. She pulled Dina close, wrapped her arms around her so tight, clinging to her as if that would be enough to ward off the memories. “Why?”

She didn’t mean to ask. But maybe part of her had always wondered. Dina could have anyone. Why would she pick her?

“Why?” Dina was laughing and crying at the same time. She pulled away, just enough so Ellie could see her face, but never leaving the circle of her arms. “I don’t know. I guess you’re a cute farmer? You’re good with JJ?” 

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Ugh.” But her heart was lifting with every moment that passed with Dina in her arms, the specter of her memories further and further away.

Dina was smiling at her, the kind of smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle, and her big brown eyes shine in what could only be joy.

Ellie couldn’t believe that of all the people Dina could have chosen, everyone she could have looked at that way, she had chosen her.

Dina kissed her then, softly, first on her lips, then her cheeks, then her closed eyes. Ellie knew it didn’t fix anything. That Abby was still out there, that Joel was still dead. That her nightmares and her memories – and her guilt, and her shame – were still there, waiting like infected in the dark to ambush her.

But in this moment, held in Dina’s arms, kissed by her lips, it felt like the warmth of a fire holding the night at bay. It made her feel safe and not alone. It made her feel loved. Broken, maybe, but not hopelessly so.

Ellie opened her eyes to find Dina looking at her, and for once there was not an ounce of sarcasm in her voice when she said, “I love you, Ellie. I want you, and only you.” Her lips curved in a hopeful, wonderful smile. “Stay with me. And I’ll be there with you, no matter how hard it gets.”

“Ok,” Ellie said quietly. “Ok.”

The look in Dina’s eyes – if joy could have leapt out of them to wrap around Ellie, it would have. Ellie smiled too, and leaned in to kiss her.

They kissed for a long time, then went up to their bed, hand in hand. They slept with Ellie holding Dina who had her arms wrapped around JJ. Ellie slept until dawn with her family in her arms. There were no dreams that night, no nightmares to wake her.

But when the nightmares did come, on other nights, when darkness threatened and panic overtook her.

Dina was always there to find her and bring her back to the light.

In darkness, comfort.

In terrible pain, hope.

Ellie held onto love, and that always brought her home. 

**Author's Note:**

> I got to the ending, and I just had to rewrite it. They are so beautiful together and they built such a life together. I want them to have a chance at that life. I wanted Ellie to make a different choice. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I liked writing it. Thank you for reading.


End file.
